A stormy vision
Dramatic images of stormyWales take centre stage at The Albany Gallery’s latest exhibition, writes JennyWhite.
WHILE most of us battened down the hatches and stayed indoors during Storm Hannah this April, painter Martin Llewellyn was recording the stormy skies and rough seas for his latest collection of paintings.
The Neath-based artist is well known for capturing Wales’ moody, windswept landscape – and when a trip to north Wales with his wife turned out to coincide with the expected arrival of Storm Hannah, he spotted an opportunity.
“We had planned to travel up to Anglesey and knew Storm Hannah was on its way, but we decided to go anyway,” he says.
“We visited various places like Anglesey, Porth Dafarch and Trearddur Bay and the stormy skies and rough seas provided me with plenty of inspiration. It was very atmospheric.”
His work is the result of time spent braving the elements, combined with time in the studio.
“I sketch outside in watercolours and then complete the painting in oils in the studio,” he says. “The paintings are mainly from Wales but I have also incorporated some of Venice for this exhibition too.”
Completely self-taught, Martin began 16
years ago as a watercolour painter but in recent years he discovered the dramatic possibilities of working in oils with a palette knife. He is strongly influenced in terms of technique and subject matter by painters such as Sir Kyffin Williams, Charles Wyatt Warren and Gwilym Prichard.
This will be his third solo exhibition for Albany Gallery; he has become one of the gallery’s top-selling artists.
The show is full of drama, but also has moments of calm. Paintings such as After the Storm, Trearddur Bay, Blustery Bay, Abereiddy and Rough Sea, Mumbles, convey windy Wales, but there are also images of the sun setting over Pembrokeshire and Abereiddy as well as haunting pictures of abandoned cottages and the snow-capped mountains of Snowdonia.
The accompanying scenes of gondolas in Venice, the beautiful Grand Canal and sunset over the San Georgio Maggiore demonstrate his ability to handle a very different palette; the result is a show full of drama and contrasts, fuelled by a passion for the effects of light on the world around us.